Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to feel discouraged that marrying well makes more impact than professional or academic achievement?

91 replies

williaminajetfighter · 31/08/2015 14:09

When I was growing up my very feminist mother always told me that I didn't need a man to get ahead and suggested I could make my own way, and have a good quality of life, by achieving academically and professionally. I did that and went to the right schools and built a good career. I was also single for the majority of my life, for lots of reasons, but I never felt I needed a man to 'complete me' as it were.

I'm now in my 40s, all well and good and I'm happy with how things have turned out generally. However I don't have an amazing quality of life and as I look around I do feel like the women I know who are the best off got there through marrying well or just marrying young (and thus having someone to support them or a dual income), not through academic or professional achievement.

I appreciate that quality of life isn't just about money and I wouldn't change my life and experiences, but it does make me wonder when I look amongst my peers and realize the best off are the ones who achieved it by aligning themselves with a successful man. I suppose thus it has been through time - but it makes me sad that 50 years after Betty Friedan it still is thus!

And knowing this, what do I tell my DDs? Yes, do well in education and yes, pursue a career but the most important thing you can do to improve your quality of life is to get married, and ideally marry well? Perhaps it's not a meritocracy but a marriage-ocracy?

Please don't flame me - I am curious if others wonder/think the same thing.

OP posts:
Spartans · 31/08/2015 20:11

How is it 'unfair'?

Some people settle down, some people don't. Those who do may settle down with some one with money. Someone else may win the lottery, or have a stroke of genius which earns them millions.

Surely the easiest way for man to get money is to marry someone rich too.

Spartans · 31/08/2015 20:14

And how is getting married and having two incomes unfair?

JanetBlyton · 31/08/2015 20:21

I am one of the mumsnetters with one of the highest incomes and I earn that myself as a lawyer. I don't agree that you need a man for money.

However assortive mating is on the rise - the times when the rich clever man wanted the not very bright secretary with big breasts and no education are long gone. Now he wants to show off his banker or surgeon Oxbridge wife on his arm. That leads to less social mobility as people are more often now sticking not just to their class groups in marriage but IQ, income and intelligence groups, a fascinating feature of our age. Same in Pakistan where in one city 70% of medics are female and they are then very very popular on the marriage market - my wife the doctor etc.

TheBeautifulAndTheDamned · 31/08/2015 20:28

JanetBlyton
How on earth do you know yours is one of the highest MN salaries?

LynetteScavo · 31/08/2015 20:33

Anyone, male or female is going to be better off financially, emotionally, etc if they join forces with a partner - unless the partner is a drain is someway.

My feminist 10yo DD has already figured out her best chance of living in a very big house with a swimming pool is to marry someone rich. I may do this face Hmm, but I think she has a point whether she's male/female/gay/heterosexual. It won't stop me encouraging her to have the highest earning and most fulfilling career she possibly can.

I wouldn't want any of my DC to have to rely on someone else if push came to shove.

Toughasoldboots · 31/08/2015 20:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Queeltie · 31/08/2015 20:40

Spartans - It is unfair because men on average, earn more than woman. For the OP who is in her 40's this will have impacted on her earnings.

Sadik · 31/08/2015 20:48

OP, do you think it's just a small sample? I'm also mid 40s, and the women I know who are best off are very much so through having very good careers.

The SAHMs I know are in many cases broke and also in many cases looking for jobs . . .

Queeltie · 31/08/2015 20:50

The woman I know who are best off are working, but have DPs who earn much more than them.

DotForShort · 31/08/2015 20:52

Well, it depends on what you mean by marrying well. My DH emigrated from his home country without a penny to his name. He wasn't earning any money when I met him (neither was I, we were both penniless students). But we both developed careers and have built a nice life for our family. It hasn't always been plain sailing but I have no complaints about our quality of life. I suppose I might have a bigger house and a newer car if I had married a wealthy man (and DH might have had the same had he married a wealthy woman). But I can't say I've ever thought much about it.

Sadik · 31/08/2015 20:55

I think you're very likely right on academic achievement though, certainly back in the day I remember that there was research showing that for economists at least there were positive financial returns on all levels of education up to a Masters but that as soon as you got a PhD average lifetime earnings fell like a stone. Basically, don't be an academic, the pay and conditions are shit . . .

JanetBlyton · 31/08/2015 21:04

"It is unfair because men on average, earn more than woman". That is not true for women below 30 though. It's the other way round in the UK. Women out earn men now.

Queeltie · 31/08/2015 21:22

Only for 22-29 year olds in full time employment. Women in that age group earn slightly more than men. In every other age groups, younger and older, and in part time work, men earn much more than women.
The OP is in her 40's so during her whole working life, men on average earned more than women, for women her age.

BestZebbie · 31/08/2015 21:33

It is very noticeable amongst my peers that marrying someone who owns a house because of inheritance from a dead parent is by far the 'best' way to acquire personal wealth, massively superior to the amounts earned per year in an average job.
But this is gender-blind, and says more about the crap state of the housing market and how poorly people in their twenties often earn than about the position of women in matrimony.

MovingOnUpMovingOnOut · 31/08/2015 21:37

If your definition of "marry well" is the same as my definition then we agree.

My definition is "don't marry a cock". Make a partnership of equals with someone who loves and respects you. And to do this you have to be educated and have earning power.

Unless one is breathtakingly beautiful and very few are. And that never lasts any way.

So still very feminist. Unless being a feminist means eschewing men which of course it does not. It means fulfil your potential, make you on way and have real choices.

christinarossetti · 31/08/2015 21:37

Yes, I agree.

The people who state that they earned the money to buy their house(s) by sheer hard work aren't those trying to get on to the property ladder now!

XCChamps · 31/08/2015 21:39

Oh that's true BestZebbie, it's important to marry an only child so you don't have to share too Grin

The most comfortable people I know are both well educated with decent jobs but their financial security comes from the fact that he was an only child and his parents died when he was in his early 20s, meaning that they were well up the housing ladder very young. His parents weren't wealthy but they were middle aged with a nice suburban home, which whatever the state of the housing market is a very nice sum to land in anyone's lap.

I wouldn't want to be him though. My DC's GPs are irreplaceable Smile

Regularhiding · 31/08/2015 21:49

agree100% with you, OP

dementedma · 31/08/2015 21:51

I have a degree and full-time job but wish I had married a wealthy bloke. An acquaintance of mine also has a degree but has never worked a day in her life. Her husband is very wealthy - old money and earned money - and yes, I admit it. I am goddamn jealous of her lifestyle, her lack of financial worries, her big house (s), top private school education for her dcs. All because she married "well".

TheMotherOfHellbeasts · 31/08/2015 21:59

christinarosetti perhaps not, but they would have faced other challenges. I am self made but I highly doubt that anyone would want to trade places with me, if you consider everything I've done and gone through to get to where I am.

EBearhug · 31/08/2015 22:03

Sheryl Sandberg says that one of the most important decisions a woman can make is who she marries - not so much because of the double income etc (though that helps), but someone who supports your career, who can be there to take on his share of housework and childcare - and more than his share, when your career needs it. All those men who are running companies, most of them have got there partly because there has been someone to do their housework, cook meals for them, do their laundry, care for their children.

It's not the only reason - there are unconscious biases and so on at play in most workplaces which men are still more likely on average to get promotions and so on. But if you think about how much of your energy is spent on housework, childcare and so on - it really adds up. What else could you be doing with that energy, if someone else was taking on some of the burden? Of course, in many marriages, there is a fairly even spread, but there are still an awful lot where women get to do all the wifework. And of course, if you're single (and childless), then you may not create as much housework and so on, but you also have no one to share it with.

Whether you do it through marriage or other ways, having a good support network of some sort is really, really important.

christinarossetti · 31/08/2015 22:21

I've also had plenty of challenges, mother, as have many of our generation, but am of an age where I could buy property, have access to free higher education etc.

My children won't have these things as given, no matter how much I and their other parent earn (and we have good salaries in London). Although they would if we had family, investment or property money.

SouthWestmom · 31/08/2015 22:26

This is really interesting. I was recently thinking about how of all the people I grew up with and went to uni with, the ones that came from money have stayed with money, the public school ones have probably used connections, and taken on 'plum' jobs - one with a third managed to get a fantastic starter position - whereas the 'clever' ones with one exception are all middle road, middle class - the houses in Blackheath are all the preserve of the monied, connected ones.

WoodliceCollection · 31/08/2015 22:33

YANBU at all. It is so, so frustrating. Like Liney above, I have good qualifications and experience, and have a stable although not quite as challenging job as I would like (which is in part because I'm unable to travel away for long periods). I know women in lower pay bands than me, or who are part time, who maintain a much higher standard of living. The only difference is that they are 1. married and 2. partners are richer. It's not through hard work, or through educational achievement, although some have that to the same extent as me. It's purely through a relationship.

It would make me laugh when idiots comment on people becoming single parents to get money/be better off, if it weren't so fucking outrageously false. I have read papers/government reports on relationships being a more reliable route out of poverty for single parents than work, but I could not deal with being financially dependent on someone so don't have that option. I also don't think it's just a result of reduced living costs from being in a relationship- it's still the case that men with the same level of qualification and experience earn more than women, and I'd guess that men are more likely (still) to inherit large amounts of money (there is actually some data on maternal cortisol affecting child gender ratios, which I suppose could also have bearing on the ratios of male to female offspring in rich families, but I am not sure of the extent of this).

TheMotherOfHellbeasts · 31/08/2015 22:37

Christina higher education wasn't free when I went, it hadn't been free for a while and most people my age can't/couldn't buy property, not without help anyway (I'm in my thirties). One of the reasons we don't live in the UK is that we wanted a better quality of life for our DS.